Keep competitive journalism alive, without the ego

As
journalists, we have the responsibility to hold ourselves accountable. It is
part of our mandate and our mission to ensure that we get our facts straight,
and also be open about our mistakes.

While I understand at
first read this editorial may come across as hypocritical, understand that this
comes from a place of empathy and a want for growth for all campus journalism.

The Varsity, St.
George’s campus paper, recently wrote an
editorial criticizing The Underground, U of T Scarborough’s campus journalists,
for their “undue sensationalism of the Scarborough Campus Students’ Union
(SCSU) elections.”

Reading through the
piece made me question the motivation behind it. I understand that it’s crucial
for journalists to hold themselves accountable, however, it isn’t the job of
journalists to take down or completely drag down other journalist outlets in an
attempt to “hold them accountable.”

Our work as journalists
is never about an “Us vs. Them mentality”. We all carry the same mission. Each
journalist outlet produces their content
in different ways. The Toronto Star nor the Globe and Mail ever go after
each other for their mistakes. Reason being, they address their own mistakes knowing
full-well the consequences of their actions

It’s about context, and
as we journalists know all too well, there is always a story behind the story.
Sources fall flat, interviews are cancelled, sources would rather not go on the
record, blockades are hit, etc. There is no easy way around it, journalism is a
tough job to embark upon, and stories take time to get out.

Every journalist outlet
is prone to their mistakes. The Medium, The Varsity, The Underground, we all
fail, but we all understand what failure means for the improvement of our work.

To The Varsity, you are
correct in saying that with the provincial government’s Student Choice
Initiative poses a serious threat to the financial stability of the student
press. We shouldn’t resort to using the editorial section as a means to drag
down fellow colleagues.

As The Underground
stated in their piece, “If your objective was to offer constructive criticism,
then we feel that a private forum would have been more appropriate for these
discussions.” This is a legitimate and open way to address concerns. Our
editorial portions of our papers are not for that discussion. Again, I
completely understand that it could be viewed as hypocritical on my end with
this piece, but the intention is not aimed to point fingers at who is “right”
and who is “wrong”.

Discourse among
journalists is essential to our growth. Taking it out on each other without
having an open discussion is a failure of good journalism within our
organizations. We hold our own accountable, and operate on budgets that reflect
our communities. We cannot pit ourselves against one another, especially in
times where our futures are so uncertain. Otherwise it becomes a battle of “who
can convince the student body to opt-in to us.” That should never be the intention.

We have to speak to one
another, and we have to engage with each other. Be critical, but also realize
that all student journalism stands at various levels in their growth, and it is
important to allow mistakes and growth to happen all at the same time. That is
the whole idea behind coming to university isn’t it?

We each represent our
individual campuses, and not one publication holds their own umbrella over ours
to ensure that we “do our jobs.” We cover stories across the U of T campuses as
well as focusing on our own, and to have that opportunity is not as accessible
to other journalist outlets. The Medium isn’t a tri-campus paper either, but we
remain strung to our UTM community, just as any other journalist outlet should.

Campus journalism is at
a risk, and ego’s will not get us far. We have to remain vigilant and open to
discourse amongst each other and encourage our growth.

We are journalists, we
have a job to do. Don’t waste whatever time we have on means to drag each other
through the dirt.